Palm Springs 2011 to 2017 Album by Warren Architecture, LLC. Photos by CBW. 1 - 125 of 125 Total. 598 Visits.
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40 With no pressing commitments this Thanksgiving, Patty and I took a drive to Palm Springs, CA. Just past the retail section of downtown, here is a typical PS sunset vista with towering palms and mountains in the distance.
41 What brought us to Palm Springs is the proliferation of mid-century structures, both residential and commercial, as evidenced in this Chase Bank building downtown.
42 Catering to the Modern lover, we chose The Hideaway hotel, recently lovingly restored to a period correct appearance. A decided benefit is that it was a short two block walk to the retail district, packed with shops and restaurants. This is the front entry and security gate.
43 The Hideaway displayed many original documents and original photographs from the hotel's past. Built in 1949 and originally called the Town and Desert, the hotel still looks remarkably as it did decades ago.
44 A smaller hotel, what the industry calls a "boutique" site, the owner once lived on site at the angle, now another rental room and the common Lounge area. We were booked in the room at the bottom, marked as the Office in this floorplan.
45 With the San Jacinto mountain behind, we look from our front door and patio across the pool. What made a great impression on us was that Palm Springs, although firmly in the desert, was incredibly landscaped and thus very "green".
46 Just as in the parent hotel, the Orbit In a block away, our spacious suite is tastefully decorated with period furniture such as Eames shell chairs, a Steelcase arm chair and a Nelson slat table.
47 Our unit included a kitchenette (incorporating a vintage cooktop, of course). The sink area sits under a curved area accent.
48 One of the more "recent" conveniences is the TV/VCR combo, with a closet full of vintage movies. Note the details: the double gooseneck floor lamp with fiberglass shades, the slab couch, the melamine dishware on the table, and they even put out rolled beach towels for pool use.
49 From the bed, you can see another sweeping accent ceiling that leads to the bathroom hallway. Too small to photograph, the bathroom was all original, including the curved turquoise tiles, glass block and built-in electric heater.
50 Outside our door was a small patio area and walkway to the centrally located pool. The landscaping was especially well done.
51 Heated to 85°, the pool sits in front of the communal lounge. Right behind me was a gas fueled fire pit built into the pool deck.
52 The Hideaway has no office (all that is taken care of at the Orbit In) and instead puts the area to better use. Each morning there was a comprehensive continental breakfast available in the kitchen that adjoins the Lounge.
53 Also stunningly decorated in original mid-century furniture, the Lounge truly looks like a step back in time.
54 Highlighting the Lounge is this sectional sofa and complimenting Eames DCW chairs.
55 Taken by the famous mid-century photographer, Julius Shulman, this original photo shows how the Lounge area appeared back in the Fifties.
56 Although making a dramatic backdrop, the proximity of the mountains meant that the sun would set behind as early as 3:15 each day! That grass was absolutely immaculate, lush and completely weed free. Quite a change from Tucson.
57 It seems to be late in the day, but Patty is in for a dip just as the sun sets. That firepit is located in front of the built-in bench and at the fence is an orange tree with fully ripened fruit for the picking.
58 On the second day of our visit, a crew was shooting a photo layout at The Hideaway. It turned out they were shooting for an Italian magazine, using the room adjacent to ours as their makeup and hair prep room. Left on an outdoor table was a print-out of an email to the home office. View this in full size and look at the last line...
59 Taped to the Lounge windows were contact sheets of the various pictures taken around the hotel and Palm Springs. Yes, they did take a few shots as promised in the email. No, we weren't there at that time.
60 Finally, they had taped up this mock-up of the chosen lead-in photo and alternates.
61 Each night the Orbit In held a Happy Hour here at the pool-side bar. Featured at Happy Hour was the "Orbitini" made with sake, OJ and cranberry juice - a very tasty concoction. The Orbit In was just a bit smaller than The Hideaway, but has one of only two CHILLED pools in PS. With an average summer high temp of 108°, that is apparently a very big selling point.
62 A bit newer, the Orbit In was built in 1955 and called the Village Manor. The Orbit/Hideaway sit right at the base of the mountain but there are still some residences built up onto the mountain side.
63 One of those mountainside homes is this private house designed in 1963 by Albert Frey. Beneath it is a 1957 house with a Frey designed addition.
64 As we look to the south from the hotel's entrance, the lush landscape dominates. There are no water worries in PS, for now, as the area sits atop natural water resources, allowing for thorough irrigation. For us desert dwellers, it was a bit unsettling to see excess irrigation water running down the street swales.
65 Throughout town are large, concentrated enclaves of mid-century homes. We felt the best was the area to the north of the hotel, also right at the base of the mountain. One stop there was this "House of Tomorrow" built in 1963 by the developer of the neighborhood and used by Elvis on his honeymoon. Patty pointed out that the window drapes are all wrong for this style.
66 It was worth taking a separate photo of the cut-outs in the roofline. Perhaps a bit heavy handed in execution, the roof edge visually continues to join the rest of the roof.
67 To get to the front entrance gate, visitors had to climb this circuitous stepway, integrated into a waterfall.
68 Many of the killer houses we saw were not able to be photographed well, but this one came out pretty good. Stressing horizontal lines and hard edges, we saw that a lot included frosted glass, a later detail.
69 Roof lines spanned the gamut of designs. Behind a privacy screen, a common feature, you can see that this house actually has two separate roof halves that create a central open entrance courtyard.
70 It's all about the details. A great gate treatment and mature landscaping counterpoint the starkness of the facade.
71 This gem was available for lease.
72 Besides the fact that I was driving most of the time, here's another reason why shooting pics of many of these houses was so difficult. Many homes featured landscaping that was so florid it obscured views without a different camera lens.
73 Possibly the best known home in PS is the Kaufmann House, designed by Richard Neutra. Had I been a bit faster, there would have been two lizards on the plaque outside the house.
74 Hardly looking like a 1947 design, the house conceivably could have been built today. As these are all active private residences, none of these houses' interiors are available for viewing. What we see here is but one corner of the structure, topped with the steel columned roof terrace.
75 Needless to say we were impressed. Actually, a large part of the house lies to the right and past what we can see from the road. But trust us, it's spectacular.
76 For sale! And with another split roof, it may not be the best example of architectural design but still has lots of potential (plus you could see all of it from the street = a decent photo).
77 A negative pitched roof is called a butterfly, on this home defining the living area from the garage.
78 Sporting a privacy screen with perforations, a floating separate entry roof and walls of glass, this house is an amalgam of many of the most popular mid-century stylings.
79 From that area, we followed a private road up the mountainside to an amazing neighborhood. That's Patty's car parked by the side of the road, with another house for sale behind it. Here, the lots were much larger with fantastic views over the valley.
80 Up here was our favorite house, by a wide margin. Known as the Edris House, it was built in 1954 by E. Stewart Williams. The integration of the house with its surroundings was perfect.
81 I couldn't decide which was the better photo, this one or the previous shot, so I kept them both for you to choose which was the best.
82 A bit further down the road, we look back and up to the Edris House, whose large overhangs shade the interior from the sun.
83 The house extends off to the right, set back from the cliff edge. From photos printed in one of our books, a pool wraps around the twin palms. In this closer view, you can see the wall of glass to capture the breathtaking view.
84 Edris House is noted for its early use of all natural elements, quite in contrast to the cutting edge style of the day.
85 Our last view is taken from far below, illustrating how well the smaller house fits the site.
86 This cul-de-sac actually is the driveway for the house to our left, shown in our next photo. What you see is the rear of a large and presumably newer house across the street from the Edris House. But wow, what a setting!
87 A home built in 1968, the Palevsky House is still considered in the Mid-century style.
88 Yeah, just another stellar house in this stellar neighborhood. It might not have been designed by a famous architect, but who cares.
89 Sitting just below the Palevsky House, this is the garage to the Alexander House, designed by Walter White in 1955. Of note here is the encircling glass clerestory windows and the stand-up edge to the roof, made to match the main house.
90 Built on an inclined plot, this photo of the main house was taken around the corner and down from the garage. Look at the graceful curve of the roof, filled beneath with frameless glass.
91 A dead-on shot of the house's side shows all the elements that make this such a unique design.
92 Hidden from view behind a tall fence, this Richard Neutra house back down on the valley floor couldn't hide from my paparazzi tactics. My camera pivots in the middle so I can hold it overhead yet still view what the camera sees.
93 Although called the Frank Sinatra house, this 1946 E. Stewart Williams designed home was not Sinatra's main residence. We went to find that other house which is in the next town, Rancho Mirage, but were unsuccessful seeing the eight building home because it was cordoned off inside a country club. Rancho Mirage, by the way, has impressive, clearly extraordinarily expensive homes, too, but are much newer in age.
94 In the distance you can see the windmill farm that lies to the north of Palm Springs. The closest rows were still being assembled.
95 On Thanksgiving day, we took the aerial tramway up to the top of Mt. San Jacinto, elevation 10,834 feet. Patty kept saying that we would tram up and then hike down. Nope, can't hike down this shear granite face.
96 As we trammed up, the tram car rotates, giving us this view back down to the Coachella Valley floor. Toward the top of the shot are the rows of windmills.
97 It's said that on a clear day you can see all the way to Catalina Island, but since LA is 110 miles away, I seriously doubt that. In any case, the view is great.
98 Looking a bit more to the south, you can see the various valley towns strung along I-10. Yes, Patty dragged me up to where there was snow!
99 At the top are hiking trails and the observation station/restaurant.
100 Each tram car carries up to eighty people and arrives/departs every 15 minutes.
101 California or Vermont?
102 Vermont or California?
103 Since we couldn't hike down from the tram, we drove over to the Indian Canyons to get in some hiking time. Abandoned along the access road to the trailheads were these two derelict buildings.
104 It wasn't until I got home that I noticed the face in this rock outcropping every car must drive around on the way in to Indian Canyon.
105 So here's why this area got its name. Natural springs spill out of the ground and tight groves of palm trees have grown right along these spring flows.
106 So it's a jarring sight to look over the edge of the parking lot to see this on the valley floor below. As evidenced by the vegetation all around, this really is a desert oasis.
107 We hear that these California fan palms are the only native palms to CA, let alone North America.
108 To get a sense of scale, I focused in tighter on the glade closest to the parking lot edge.
109 Nearly all of the trails originate from the palm area. Here's Patty before we set out.
110 The juxtaposition of the palms to the surrounding mountains makes for some great images.
111 Our trail, heading out in the opposite direction from the most popular trails, began as a line of demarcation between the spring stream and the mountain.
112 You can see how isolated the palm groves are in this desert environment. Imagine what the Spanish must have thought when they first came across this.
113 About a mile and a quarter from the parking area and looking back to the access road, the canyon hills look very sparsely vegetated, mostly dotted with Creosote bushes.
114 Now this is what you'd expect on a desert hike. It was a gorgeous 75° with just a mild breeze. Although rain was forecast, the day turned out as sunny as the rest of our visit.
115 From here we can see all the way back to the city of Palm Springs.
116 Our destination was another palm grove in Murray Canyon, around the mesa. But the outstream from the canyon produced a small palm groping or two.
117 You might be able to tell from this shot that all the ground in the area was a sandy composition, which desert plants actually prefer.
118 As we get closer, it's clear that this canyon is quite narrow.
119 We ran out of time to reach the full canyon, for the park site was set to close early for the holiday. So we had to settle to just make it to the beginning of the grove, instead.
120 Once again, the grove was beyond idyllic.
121 This is one of the few saplings we found. It seems that the adult trees are packed too tightly together to allow any offspring to take root.
122 We had to ford the stream and one of us lost her balance and got her foot soaked. See how the trees grow right in the water? I knew palms liked moisture but didn't know that they could tolerate a bog condition.
123 (Fuzzy cell phone shot - sorry) There were many shops that catered to mid-century fans. I found this Isamu Noguchi sculpture in one small shop. But...it turns out that this sculpture was once rented from Disney's prop department and a copy , this exact sculpture, was returned instead of the original! The switch went unnoticed for decades.
124 Costing $6000 in the early Sixties, or more than twice the price of a basic Chevy, this Clairtone Project G stereo console was the absolute king. Found in PS, the unit shown here is the factory PROTOTYPE for this exclusive line of stereos, of which only 400 were made. I so love it.
125 With all this around, we couldn't come home empty handed. Buried in the back of one store we found this unidentified floor lamp that fit perfectly in the trunk. Although I don't need another project, the light will undergo a full restoration in the future, once we discover its history and manufacturer.
